


Lost and Found

by MoxieArts



Category: Eddsworld - All Media Types
Genre: Bullying, Character Death, Fluff and Angst, Heavy Angst, It's not who you think it is, Long-Distance Friendship, M/M, Promise, Soul Bond, Terminal Illnesses, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2018-11-06 13:19:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11036991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoxieArts/pseuds/MoxieArts
Summary: Everyone has a soulmate, somewhere out there in the vast world. Someone who is their other half, who completes them perfectly. To the point where even physical things that are lost by one person are gained by the other; it's always been that way, ever since the earliest writings of man. Thomas has had his soul mate ever since he was six, separated by an ocean and just under 5,000 miles. As he gets older and those miles steadily drop down to zero, what will he think of his closest friend and supposed lover? Will he allow himself to fall in love, or will time tear the two apart?





	1. Trinkets and Treasure Troves

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, welcome to the most over-done trope ever. _Soul Mates_. I tried to make it a little different, so let me know what you think guys!!
> 
> #####  This fic will be updated bi-weekly until finished. Tags will be edited with each new chapter that is uploaded.

Everyone has a soulmate, somewhere out there in the vast world. Someone who is their other half, who completes them perfectly. To the point where even physical things that are lost by one person are gained by the other; it's always been that way, ever since the earliest writings of man. Ancient Scholars argued over the scientific properties behind it, Shamans dubbed it the work of the gods. Whatever you chose to believe, it was just a fact of life. The earth is round, the sun is hot, and people are born in intermingled pairs that share items. 

Another funny things about that, is the _distance_ some items travel. Some soul mates are in the same state or even the same city, but others? Others can be thousands upon thousands of miles apart and somehow items will still find their way between the two without issue. It's baffling to think about, even today. What kind of outside force is in play to have a set of house keys disappear and reappear over a thousand miles away, completely unchanged except for their new location? 

Thomas Jacob Ridgewood has been pondering this line of thought ever since he was a mere child. Because, at the tender age of six, Thomas lost his favourite toy- a teddy bear named Tommee Bear. He'd made his parents tear the house apart looking for it, destroying his room in his hysterical search and even going as far to search his babysitters car. The young boy spent days on edge, near constantly ready to burst into tears because his toy, his best friend, his _confidant_ was missing. 

And then, one day there was a toy sitting on his bed that he'd never seen before. A scrappy red triceratops, with a missing eye and stains on its feet. A scrap of paper was folded up and tied with a shoelace around the neck, which when opened showed a crude drawing of Tom's teddy bear, done in red and purple crayons. Shaky, messing writing underneath the picture read 'DI N ?'. Tom's initial reaction was someone had stolen his toy, and replaced it with this old used one. He'd scooped up the toy and ran sobbing to his mother, who had been quite taken aback at her son's reaction.

It was then that she'd sat him down and wiped the tears from his purplish blue eyes to explain to him that this was the work of a Soulmate Factor. He remained pressed close to her bosom as she calmly explained soulmates and how that factor of his life would work now. He was none too pleased that he had a soul mate, especially since that meant his favourite Teddy Bear was now gone. He'd started to complain excessively over this fact when his mother gently reprimanded him and told him that his soul mate had probably lost his favourite toy now too.

And so, with the help of his mother, Tom wrote a response and drew a picture for his newfound friend. Losing the paper was easy, Tom was a very forgetful child and always busy running around. From then on, he and his soulmate sent each other pictures and notes, as well as the occasional pencil or lost handful of trinkets. They soon found a language barrier between them, this boy speaking a weird looking language that had letters in it that reminded his mother of Russian. Often, carefully written words by their mothers were accompanied with crayon scribbled drawings to explain the meanings. 

By third grade the two had their languages worked out and had a system. Tom learned the silly looking words were Norwegian, and he even memorized some of them. His friend was picking up English easily, as his parents were apparently having him learning it in school. So their little lost letters back and forth became an almost indecipherable combination of English and Norwegian words smushed together. 

Tom learned his friend's name was a really complicated foreign name he couldn't pronounce, but they went by Red. Red really liked Tom's name, and the kids joked that he could be called Blue, then. Like their own code names, as if they were spies or special forces. Tom had said he wouldn't mind being a spy, but he really wanted to be an astronaut or mermaid when he grew up. Red had agreed that being a mermaid would be cool, but he really wanted to be a King, or maybe a doctor, or a spy. 

Grade school was good to them, Red learned more and more English, and got better at teaching Tom Norwegian. In fifth grade he taught Tom how to say all the naughty words his parents used, and Tom revelled in his ability to say them around his parents without getting in trouble. In turn he taught Red some of his own favourite cuss words his friends at school had made up.

He'd grown into the habit of dumping out his backpack and pockets onto his bed every night and sorting through everything for find trinkets that Red had lost so he could keep them. He had a shelf full of Red's lost things- pens, army figurines, scraps of paper, race cars, the occasional sheet of homework in another language. Sometimes if he was bored, he would even try to fill out some of it- maybe succeeding in answering ten questions if he was doing really well. He knew Red ended up with some of his homework as well, they'd been losing it back and forth for years now. 

Early on it had been quite a problem, with having to tell his teachers that his Soulmate Factor had transported his homework thousands of miles away. The first few times he got in a lot of trouble, until he could get a note from both his and Red's mother for his principal saying that they were in fact bonded. He'd been the talk of the class for quite a while due to that- he was the first one to have a soul mate out of his class of twenty. Most people wouldn't click with their soul mate until they were ten to fourteen. And his soul mate was in a cool, foreign country. 

Tom enjoyed the attention he got, everyone thought he was the coolest kid in class. He even asked Red if he'd been getting similar praises, but he'd skirted around the question and said that Tom's lost treasures were all he really needed. The handful of marbles, bouncy balls, rocks, and stolen scraps of fabric from his mother's waste basket were enough to satiate Red. One time Tom even lost an orange, which Red informed him he’d never had before. Apparently it had been delicious and Red had been ecstatic to eat it, refusing to share with anyone. 

Well, it happened more than once. Tom lost his lunch a lot, and Red would always ask him what he'd eaten and jokingly thank Tom for the free food. Every now and then some of Red's snacks would pop up on his desk or in his locker or backpack. Tom always ate them happily, even if they tasted funny. His favourite was something Red called a Krumkaker, which was like a thin cake with whipped cream and berries in the middle. 

Right before middle school is when things started to get more complicated. It seemed Tom had inherited his mother's eye cancer, and life got really hectic for him. Around this time Red's parents were teaching them to be more organized, so notes and trinkets were coming in at a steadily slower and slower pace. Tom steadily got more stressed between the lack of support from his near constant rock and the terrifying pressure of hospital visit after hospital visit. 

He didn't mind that he was going to have black eyes like his mother, not too much at least. Sure he'd miss his purple blue eyes, they were pretty and he'd been known to enchant people with just a look thanks to them. But the process was painful and long, and doctor's made everything about it scary. Tom missed most of the school year, choosing to stay cooped up at home when he wasn't at the hospital. Every few days a note or trinket would pop up in his bed or on the window sill, the notes always much longer to make up for the radio silence. Red was always asking about Tom's treatment, worried for their friend. Tom played it off and said that he was just having treatment for chronic headaches, weary to admit to hi soulmate that he had cancer. That word always changed things when people heard it, he’d found. 

The hospital was boring without his friends and Red only getting him notes every few days. He sorely missed the days when they could pass notes all day long. He felt a bit cheated that Red was getting more organized and going to school while Tom was still forgetful as ever, if not even more thanks to his treatment. The radiation was icky and made him feel overly groggy, and the pills made him beyond loopy. With both of those factors, Tom spent most of his days either asleep or halfway there, never sure what was a dream and what was real. 

The days and weeks he spent at home when not in the hospital weren't any better, since they'd still have him on pills. He couldn't ever seem to drink enough water and felt near constantly nauseous, not to mention the horrible pain that would blossom in his head if a noise was room loud or something was too bright. His mother was always right there to help him through it all, explaining these were migraines and comforting him by telling him that meant it was almost over. The reasoning behind his migraines was that his eyes were literally melting inside his head, steadily turning into a semi-solid black goop. 

His father seemed to fret endlessly over him, despite his mom remind him all the time that she'd gone through the exact same thing when she was fourteen. To which he would always sputter out "but Melinda, he's only **eleven.** " Tom appreciated the excessive attention from his parents, but he found himself steadily growing more upset with each passing week. Little things started to annoy him that had never bothered him before. How his father rubbed circles around the knuckle of his ring finger whenever he talked to Tom, Red's broken English and simple sentences in his letters, how predictable all his favourite TV shows we're becoming, the collection of Red's trinkets on his shelf collecting dust, the annoying buzz of his mother's sewing machine, Red's seemingly fake concern for Tom's health, how Tom was still losing things- how the things he was losing were steadily becoming more important. 

Just a few weeks before the end of his treatment, Tom lost his gameboy. For the first time since he lost Tommee Bear to Red, Tom threw a temper tantrum. His reaction was vastly out of proportion to the situation and _he knew it_ , which only made him more upset and angry. It all came to a boiling point when Tom snapped at his mother and threw her sewing machine to the ground. He didn't feel the guilt or the horror at his actions until hours later, when he was curled under his blanket and cried out. 

He felt hollow and aching inside as he reflected on the past few weeks, staring into the darkness under his blanket and incapable of falling asleep, or so he thought. The next afternoon he woke up to a tacky feeling face, and dark purplish grey stains on his pillow. An emergency trip to the hospital showed that he'd essentially forced his eyes to speed up the process of liquefying themselves. Within a few days his dark grey orbs became a pitch black goop. 

The doctors took him off his treatment plan and instead prescribed a bottle of neon pink and navy blue capsules. These would keep his eyes from becoming completely liquid and keep the cancer from spreading anywhere else. The only side affects were the crippling depression and anxiety attacks. Around the time he was supposed to go back to school, a lengthy letter from Red showed up. Tom had completely forgotten to write to his soul mate the past few weeks. _Forgotten. How ironic._

For a few days, Tom considered whether he wanted to write back or not. The past few months had been stressful beyond belief, and he and Red didn't talk nearly as much anymore. He could just stop losing letters for his soul mate. However, just a few days before he was supposed to start school again, a stuffed red cat only slightly smaller than his pillow popped up on his desk with another letter. This time the writing was slow and deliberate, made to look pretty. The stuffed animal was a present Red got both as an apology and as a belated get well gift, since he couldn't come visit Tom in the hospital. 

The letter also explained that it was getting harder for Red to lose things, but they'd been trying their hardest for weeks to lose this gift. 

Tom decided he'd keep writing to Red.


	2. Late Night Calls and Lost Lunches

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas has had his soul mate ever since he was six, separated by an ocean and just under 5,000 miles. As he gets older and those miles steadily drop down to zero, what will he think of his closest friend and supposed lover? Will he allow himself to fall in love, or will time tear the two apart? Especially as the two grow older and go through the hardships of not only high school, but life as well?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter two, as promised! Hope you guys enjoy it!! I know I certainly enjoyed writing it
> 
> #####  This fic will be updated bi-weekly until finished. Tags will be edited with each new chapter that is uploaded.

Returning to school had been less successful than Thomas would've hoped. His first day back, he quickly became the talk of the school, for the second time in his young life. Only this time, it was rumors and jokes being spread around about his eyes. People used him in horror stories about homeschooling, or used his eyes as an example of what happens if you aren't popular enough. More often than not he would find **'FREAK'** written on his desk, or across his locker. Kids dared each other to see who was the bravest and who would get the closest to him. Tom lost his collection of friends, and his grades slipped into C's and D's. Life at home was full of questions about his sudden sullen attitude, though he refused to provide answers to any of them. 

Unless Red was asking. Whenever Red asked him about things, Tom could just write pages upon pages of his trials. Sure, responses from Red had trickled down to a mere note or two every few weeks, but Tom still found himself as close as ever to his soul mate. In one of his notes, Red mentioned he had a phone now, and have Tom his number so they could text. Despite all of his begging, his parents insisted he was too young for his own cell phone, telling him to use the landline instead. 

It took Tom a few weeks to work up the courage to actually dial the number. It was kind of pitiful- he'd been talking to Red since they were six. Red was by far his closest friend and knew all of his secrets, yet he couldn't work up the courage to speak on the phone with him. Not until one particularly bad day at school, that is. 

By this point in the year, he'd grown fairly used to the relentless teasing and name calling by his fellow peers. Tom had become far too used to the way the other kids would scatter and stay as far as possible from him so they couldn't get infected. That had become a normal for him. But on this day, he got his first beating. He'd just been eating his lunch on the bench outside and suddenly his face was being shoved into it. When he managed to wriggle out from under the hand crushing his face into the platter, a fist collided with his stomach. 

He was punched and kicked repeatedly until he fell to the ground, where he was spat on and told never to come back to school. No one wanted him there, and he was just a little out of place freak. Tom managed to sneak past teachers to the bathroom, where he washed the food and blood from himself. Before class he stole a tattered blue hoodie from the lost and found, one that covered his filthy shirt and scraped up arms. 

That night he dialed Red for the first time. It rang a few times before it was picked up, slurred Norwegian meeting Tom’s ears. He sat for a few seconds in silence, suddenly wondering exactly why he thought this would be a good idea- calling his soul mate at eleven at night to; to do what exactly? To complain about his day at school, and ask for Red to comfort him? That bleary voice crackled through the phone once more and Tom let his body sink back against his bed frame, chest growing tight as he listened to the slurred foreign words. The next pause he was offered, Tom finally swallowed thickly and talked lowly into the speaker. 

“Red?” His voice comes out much softer than he initially planned, and there’s a pregnant pause before he receives a response. 

“Blue?” The accent on his voice is nearly too thick to comprehend, but Tom’s heavy heart thumps hard against his ribcage at the sound of his nickname coming off his best friend’s lips. 

Their conversation is short and difficult to understand, but leaves Thomas feeling fuzzy and slightly giddy, despite the ever present throb of pain in his stomach. Most of the conversation is Red correcting his Norwegian, Tom only occasionally having to help him with his english. When they finally get to the topic of the call, Tom elects not to tell Red about his beating, instead shirking off and saying he simply was curious. “ _At least you aren’t a, uh- how do you say? Mau mau.. Ah, cat._ ” Tom laughs at the analogy and agrees, soon finding that despite his increasing fondness for talking to his best friend, they soon have to hang up before his parents find out he’s on the phone so late. Red agrees and says that he has to get ready for school, as it’s nearly six am where he is. Neither one of them know how they should end the call, leading to an awkward minute of silence before they sign off with a simple ‘good-bye’ on each end. 

Soon weekly phone calls became a must between the two, escalating to bi-weekly when things at school became worse for Thomas. And oh, how that situation festered into quite the nasty occurrence. Tom had quickly gone from the school freak to target practice for anyone with a bone to pick. The hoodie he’d stolen from the lost and found quickly became his staple clothing, as it hid his bruises and scrapes easily without him having to come up with an excuse for wearing a winter jacket in the middle of March. His mother and father didn’t seem pleased with his new look, but as long as they didn’t find out why Tom was constantly hiding in the folds of his hoodie, all would be well. 

However, the secretivity and avoidance was starting to really have a toll on Tom’s once pleasant home life. There was once a time when Tom would feel comfortable telling his mother nearly anything, yet now when she asked him about his activities, he shrugged her off and supplied vague answers. More often than not, Tom was the root of arguments between his parents; this fact made him feel guilty, but there wasn’t exactly anything he could do to remedy it. What was he supposed to do, exactly? Tell his parents that kids at school were beating him to a pulp over his eyes? No, that would just cause further arguing between his parents, so he kept his school life to himself and pushed his parents away so they didn’t dig too deep. 

Tom’s relationship with his father worsened and took a sour turn; they’d never been very close, but these days it seemed all they did was fight. His father never threatened to do anything to him, yet Tom would still flinch around his parent when their arguments got too heated. A few months of bitter tension grew between the two before his father took notice of his son’s jumpiness and started to connect dots. Finally their arguments came to a violent boiling point, in whence Tom threatened to drop out of school and his father finally put his foot down. _We both know this has nothing to do with the cell phone, Thomas! Just tell me what’s wrong already!_ Those words managed to finally wrench the truth from Thomas, after months of avoidance of his true issues, Tom let it all out. 

The sight of mottled bruises on his son’s stomach filled Edgar Ridgewood with a smothering kind of sadness. For not only had his son been enduring this torture at school, but he’d been causing himself even more stress at home for fear of telling them. The next twenty four hours were a strained mixture of comforting words and angry phone calls to the school officials who’d been turning a blind eye to such blatant bullying on their campus. Thomas had begged for his mother to be kept in the dark, knowing her reaction would likely be much more emotional than his father’s. And he had been right about that, for when Edgar told his wife what had happened to their son, her first action was to pull Tom into a bone crushing hug that she swore she would never release him from. Luckily she couldn’t keep her word, and Tom was released after a ~~unbelievably long~~ short two hours. 

Summer came, and with it the sweet release from the vice grip school had on him. Tom spent most of his time on the phone with Red, improving his Norwegian and talking about everything under the sun. Tom would translate some of his poetry into Norwegian with Red’s help, while Red tended to work on his family computer and code things during their long conversations. Again, they easily lapsed into a mixture of Norwegian and English when they spoke, though Tom’s Norwegian was still choppy at best. His parent’s weren’t exactly happy with how reclusive he became over summer, but once Tom reminded them he didn’t have any friend’s outside of Red they soon stopped bringing it up. In fact, this topic of conversation actually led to Tom getting his first cell phone. 

Tom was absolutely enamoured with the device, and was quick to take up texting Red whenever they couldn’t be on the phone with each other. Summer drudged by like this, hours trickling by with nothing more than Red’s accented laugh on the other end of his phone and the occasional guitar lesson from his father to coax him from his room. Closer to the end of summer, Tom started working on a crochet blanket with his mother again, intent on making a gift for Red for the apparently bitingly cold weather in Norway. Honestly, it was just an attempt to distract himself from the fact that school was right around the corner- and this time is was _high school._ Red could easily tell he was becoming more stressed, and pointed it out by sending a picture of the collection of Tom’s lost things that had appeared over the week. 

One late night at 2 in the morning, he offhandedly offered to hack into the school’s computer system and wreak havoc on Thomas’ bullies for him, which Tom snorted at before turning down his offer. He promised he’d be fine this year, since not only was it a new school, but his parents had grilled the school board to make sure that Tom would receive no more bullying. Red didn’t seem as pleased with this solution, but agreed that he would simply text Tom throughout the school days to make sure he remained safe. And, funnily enough, he did. Freshman year started off without a hitch, for the most part. Any attempts at bullying were reported and swiftly taken care of by his teachers. Tom had fairly standard classes, only opting to take German I instead of Spanish I like most of his peers as his foreign language. 

Holidays came and went easily, Tom even managing to send Red a Christmas present- just a simple knife that his friend had been gushing about a few months back. Shipping costed an arm and a leg, but it was well worth it to receive Red’s excited text at four in the morning, calling him a _‘filthy American whore!’_ and teasing him for writing _‘from: **Blue** ’_ on the package instead of his real name. New Year's Eve his parents let him have his first alcoholic drink, which after many terse words from his mother to his father, became several. Around nightfall it became apparent that there wouldn’t be enough alcohol for the three of them, so his father made a quick run to the drugstore to get some cheap drinks for them, as well as a plastic bucket for when Tom inevitably threw up. 

One hour and thirty-eight minutes was all it took. One hour and thirty-eight minutes for Tom’s life to become completely fucked. His mother received a call from the hospital asking for her to come in, there had been an incident involving Tom’s father and she needed to be there. A police officer met them at the emergency room instead of a nurse, telling the pair that his father had walked in on a robbery and been shot. He was dead on the scene by the time police and paramedics had arrived. After that everything was a light-headed buzz for Tom. Supposedly, he had thrown up right there, but he’d never be able to remember the details. 

The next few weeks were a dizzy haze. His mother’s breakdown, the disorienting wake, the overflowing funeral. Tom never went back to school when it started up, spending his days staring blankly at the wall from his new spot in his father’s chair. He and his mother drifted around the house like ghosts, never staying in the same room for more than a few minutes for fear that the other would remind them of their loss. Tom always had his phone in his hand, if only to stare at it whenever it buzzed. The first few days Red had simply called him twice a day and teased him about having a hangover. As they turned into a week without any answers from Tom, calls and texts alike barraged his phone at the randomest of times. The feeling of his phone buzzing in his numb fingers brought Tom back whenever he began floating away. And though he never opened them, he’d read the near frantic messages as they popped onto his screen. 

His Christmas present from Red showed up three weeks late on his door step, and Tom simply put it on his desk. At some point his mother placed broken down boxes in his room and numbly informed him that he should pack, that they were going to move to Britain where her family was. Neither he nor his mother really packed much, And within a month they had everything they wanted packed. Red’s frantic texts and calls had become more depressed and dwindled down to a simple two or three a day again. Finally, the night before their moving pod was supposed to arrive and take all their boxes and furniture, Tom answered his call. 

“Blue? kjære Gud, I thought you were,” Red sounds devastated, absolutely broken. Part of Tom breaks even more on the inside of his emotionless husk he’s forced himself into, and when he can hear Red begin to panic again he responds. 

“I’m moving to Britain.” There’s tense silence between the two and he can practically hear Red’s emotions violently flipping. Finally, he settles on anger. 

“Du… Du er bare fucking _moving?_ That’s why you haven’t been jævla **svarer til meg.** ”

“Yeah.” More silence stretches between them and Tom stares at his collection of Red’s lost things, sitting unpacked on his shelf. He swallows thickly around the tightness in his throat and tucks his knees up to his chest. Two shaky breaths later he continues, “Red, I don’t want to talk anymore.”

“You haven’t talked to me in over a month, Th,”

“I mean at all.” 

Even more silence before he hears a sharp, tense intake of breath. “What do you mean min blå kamerat.” The nickname sounds broken on his tongue, voice thick with emotion that Tom just can’t make himself feel. 

“I mean jeg vil ikke du ringer meg igjen, Thorhadd,” he responds quietly, using his best friend’s real name. Silence envelopes them again, save for the near inaudible sound of Red nearly crying. 

When he responds, his voice breaks into a near sob, “Thomas, _why are you doing this?_ ” 

Finally, that heart broken question pierces through and causes tears to fall from Tom’s burning eyes. He sits in silence with Red for a minute, the two of them simply crying over the gut wrenching pain in their chests. He wipes stubbornly at his burning eyes and takes a shaky breath to try and steady himself, but it turns into a choked sob. 

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs softly before hanging up. Red doesn’t try to call back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that was fun. 
> 
>  
> 
> **Translations:**
>
>> **Kjære Gud:** Oh my God  
>  **Du… Du er bare:** You... You are just  
>  **jævla svarer til meg:** fucking answering me  
>  **min blå kamerat:** my blue comrade  
>  **jeg vil ikke du ringer meg igjen, Thorhadd:** I don't want you calling me again, Thorhadd  
> 
> 
> So yeah, hope you enjoyed :)
> 
>  **MAJOR EDITS!**  
>  The Norwegian has been fixed, thanks to the lovely Kai Perkins!


	3. Melancholy Melodies and Mottled Hearts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been six or seven months since I worked on this oops.

Everything in Britain is dull. The move, the weather, his new house, the school- everything about the transition is oh so painfully boring. And not just because Thomas no longer has Red to talk to. No, his boredom stems from the fact that everything around him seems to be painted in shades of grey- something he highly doubts will help his mother with her depression. There’s not really anything he can do about his singular parent left withering away in her arm chair in the living room; just as there is nothing he can do about his own mental state becoming a poor balancing act during an earthquake... Nothing he can do except swipe bottles from his mother’s ever full liquor cabinet and do some self-medicating, that is. 

The transition into a new school over halfway through the school year goes nearly unnoticed, most everyone ignoring the presence of a new kid to focus on their studies for upcoming finals. Which is perfectly fine with Tom, because as long as no one’s paying attention to him, they won’t notice that his thermos smells like alcohol everyday and his speech is always slurred. He takes up the role of quiet kid in class, grateful for his black eyes, incapable of being bloodshot and showing just how much he’s had to drink or how little he’s slept. Funnily enough, hiding his inebriation is quite easy once he gets the hang of it; he simply comes off as the quiet, anti-social new kid- a role he’s perfectly fine with accepting. 

It’s not until his fifth week there that Tom gains any attention, and thankfully it’s only from a brunet in the same class as him. It starts awkwardly when he’s simply practicing on his father’s old guitar in the gym during lunch and the teen approaches him. Tom manages to convey that he’s not interesting in talking without seeming like too much of an ass, to which he’s told that the other simply wants to listen to him play. It takes a few chugs of liquid courage, and then Tom’s perfectly fine with his new friend listening in on him. They have silent lunches together from then on out, Tom never learning the guy’s name and simply playing his guitar every afternoon, occasionally sipping from his trusty thermos to keep his nerves steady. 

One day his brunet shows up with a few more people, something they never discussed being allowed. Still, once they become quiet due to the other teen’s shushing, Tom simply chugs his contraband drink and plays again. He soon finds he has a small group of five everyday, surrounding him in amicable silence as he plays his guitar. 

There’s one guy who can’t seem to follow the unspoken rule of silence, whom always finds himself humming along to Tom’s strumming, trying to talk to Tom in the few seconds between the end of lunch and the bell to get to class, and purposefully seeking him out between classes or before school. Tom usually manages to get away by distracting the guy by mentioning homework or the like. It’s honestly kind of amusing, how persistent this kid is. Eventually he receives a phone number and a name- Matthew Hargrove. Tom leaves Matt on the edge of his seat waiting, always giving him half-assed answers on whether or not he will text him finally. A few days before summer he gives in and messages the ginger, immediately getting dragged into an outing with Matt and the first person Tom had played for- Edd. 

Early on they learned not to ask Tom about his soul mate, or what was in his ever-present thermos, or why his face would get so dark when something that didn’t belong to him would show up in his pocket. Their friendship grew slowly over the summer, never spending time at Tom’s house or too long at Edd’s either. Matt was perfectly fine having them over or treating the three of them to movies and ice cream, only occasionally griping at Tom for being too sluggish for his liking. Near the beginning of their next school year, Matt convinces the rest of their friends to pitch in and they buy Tom his own guitar, a beautiful electric bass with a black and white checkered pattern. He absolutely adores it, and practices on the new instrument constantly. 

School rolls around and they fall into an easy pattern similar to the one already in place. The year passes easily, as does the next one. Some of their friends move on, others are new to join their group. The solid base of Tom, Edd, and Matt seems to stick through it all. Edd and Matt grow more concerned for their black eyed friend as they grow closer and learn just how much the teen drinks, but after a failed intervention, they leave him be about his bad habits. Occasionally Matt will switch out his drinks, and Edd casually hides bottles of water in Tom’s locker and bag for him to find and drink- but they recognize there’s not much else they can do for their comrade. 

Halfway through their third year, Tom switches to part time schooling and gets a job in hopes of moving into his own place when he graduates. Edd agrees with his sentiment and gets an apprenticeship, whilst Matt focuses solely on his schooling. Towards the end of their final year, Edd asks if the two of them wouldn’t share an apartment with him, and after much discussion, Tom agrees to live with his two highschool buddies. Edd is planning on attending art school online and continuing his apprenticeship, and while Matt was born into money he still promises to get a job to help out with rent. Tom is able to switch to a full shift and pick up a second job as well, though he can’t help but think maybe Edd only offered for him to move in to keep an eye on him and his drinking. 

The place they end up with isn’t anything too fancy, though Matt pays most of the down payment. A few months into living together, Edd decides they need a fourth roommate to help pay the bills- he even offers to give up his ‘office’ and turn it into a room for this new person. Tom reluctantly spends some of his alcohol money on a few ads here and there, in miscellaneous newspapers and local magazines. Within a few months, with much trial and error, they finally have it narrowed down to a few possible roommates. Due to their agreement on how money had been split for this whole endeavor, it was up to Edd and Thomas to choose. There was a guy from the Wales who was planning on going to college nearby and one who’d grown up overseas and moved here to find work. Both seemed like great, hard working candidates and the decision was quite difficult for both men until Tom offered them a drink and the man from Wales asked for a Pepsi. 

Edd instantly voted they have the guy from overseas stay, and after Tom found out he spoke German and Norwegian as well, he agreed. They had a full conversation in Norwegian, Tom admitting he’d learned it for a friend he no longer spoken to and their new roommate saying that he’d grown up speaking Norsk and English. He finally introduced himself as Tord in English to the three of them, and they all made rounds of introductions. Tom and Tord really hit it off, despite their differing political and religious beliefs. Both of them were more relieved and excited to have someone they could talk to in their shared languages than anything. Occasionally Tord would have to fix Tom’s slang, or Tom would have to correct Tord on the pronunciation of certain Germanic words; but, the two got along like two peas in a pod. 

Tom found out Tord had been in the ROTC while in school, but his country’s army hadn’t really interested him, so he’d moved to Britain in hopes of better work opportunities. Shortly after moving in, Matt helped him get a job as a receptionist at the hotel where Matt worked- a job that Tord didn’t necessarily like, but worked hard at. The four became fast friends, and with everyone working they were easily able to afford social outings after a few months. They built up a schedule of who would choose what, aiming for two major outings a month as a group. Occasionally one of them wouldn’t be able to make it, but mostly it was the four of them. Edd usually chose the theme park, nickel arcade, or things that were more gaming savvy for them to partake in; Matt’s choices always revolved around easier tasks- shopping, movies, visits to dog parks and such; Tom tended to go the nightlife route, always taking them to the bar or sneaking into a college party- pretty much anything that contained alcohol; and Tord always chose more adventurous routes for them like paintball and camping. 

As holidays drew closer, however, Tom stopped joining them in outings. Matt and Edd immediately took notice- they’d been dealing with this particular issue for years now. The house remained tense as New Year's drew closer, Tom’s mood steadily dropping and his roommates growing more weary of his semi-violent outbursts. Finally the night of arrived, and Tom continued his five year tradition- drinking every single bottle of alcohol he could find in their house. Matt and Edd had grown far too used to this yearly form of self-destruction, already haven taken the precautions and confiscated Tom’s phone and keys. As he did every year, Tom begged for his phone so he could call his soul mate, both Matt and Edd refusing to give it to him. When he started babbling about what an idiot he’d been in Norwegian, Tord took over in comforting him. Several drinks later, all four of them passed out in a heap on the couch. 

After that night, Tord joined Matt and Edd in the memorization of Tom’s drinking habits, the three of them easily learning his tells and doing their best to stop him before he went too far down the rabbit hole. Tord tended to be the most useful when Tom drank too much, coaxing him in Norwegian, which they found calmed down the black eyed alcoholic far more than talking to him in English. He’d never admit it, but they knew it was because the language made him think of his lost Soul Mate. 

Things calmed down once again, and the group fell into an easy permeance. After nearly four years of them all living together, things started to drift apart. They were old enough now to start making their own lives, and forging their own paths. All three of them expressed their worries for Tom living on his own- he’d only gotten worse over the years about his drinking, and without a group there to catch him every time he fell and make sure he didn’t accidentally kill himself, who knew what would happen. It all came to a boiling point the day that Tord told them he was going to be the first to move out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gya, lots of things have happened IRL that have lead to me having to put this on hold, but finally I'm working on it. Squeezing everything I wanted to into just one more chapter isn't going to work out, so you'll be getting a few more, loves. Sorry for the wait.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, yeah. That's chapter one. Don't forget, comments are loved! Chapter two will be out Friday (6/2)


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